What a difference a day makes.
Skip Bayless is still boosting Fox’s 9:30 a.m. time slot, but his second episode couldn’t keep up with the first. “Undisputed” posted a 0.07 overnight rating on Wednesday morning, down 30 percent from Tuesday’s 0.10. (In final numbers, “Skip and Shannon: Undisputed” nabbed 125,000 viewers with its post-Labor Day premiere, way up from the 16,000 that time slot usually commands with random reruns.)
Meanwhile, Bayless’ old show, ESPN2’s “First Take,” put up a 0.32 yesterday — that’s a whopping 457 percent advantage. Of course, it’s also a somewhat unfair comparison.
ESPN calls itself the Worldwide Leader in Sports for a reason — it is still far bigger than the competition, with greater reach and recognition. FS1 is more concerned with “Undisputed’s” performance against the time slot average last year, which was a 0.o2, and last month, a 0.o3. Final numbers for both series should be officially released tomorrow.
At Fox Sports 1, Bayless is reunited with buddy and boss Jamie Horowitz, another ESPN alum. The former Dallas Morning News columnist sits opposite NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe on the new show.
TheWrap recently spoke with Bayless, who revealed to us that “First Take” was nearly canceled over a 2013 incident involving him and NFL All-Pro Richard Sherman. He also compared and contrasted his old show with his new one, and swore up and down that his polarizing answers are not a masked effort to troll the audience.